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The idea that employers need to give you everything you want is strange. They give you the least they can possibly get away with. Sure - some small subset of

The idea that employers need to give you everything you want is strange. They give you the least they can possibly get away with. Sure - some small subset of employers competing for the best employees will do this. But the average employer? I'm skeptical.

Veliladon 3y ago
Not only will those employers competing for the best get the best, they'll get it at a discount rate because remote workers are on average willing to accept an 18% pay cut to remain fully remote. Employees are literally willing to pay employers to stay at home. The middle manager who is awful at their job and so insecure they need to "see employees working" is costing the business not just in talent acquisition but when pulling in the dregs they're paying a premium for it. The center cannot hold.
- tayo42 3y ago
  Middle managers aren't making these decisions to have people go back to working in offices
  - kjkjadksj 3y ago
    Their job is to support their staff against higher management. They are failing to do that if their teams are begrudgingly going back to work. They really do have all the leverage here. A business cannot function without labor or else it would just be the c suite as the only people employed.
    - volkk 3y ago
      tell me you've never managed without telling me you've never managed
- robertlagrant 3y ago
  > The center cannot hold The center isn't just insecure managers. Plenty of people want to work together... together. I happen to run my team remote, but to reduce a real issue to insecurity is to starve the conversation of meaningful contributions.
- onlyrealcuzzo 3y ago
  > The middle manager who is awful at their job and so insecure they need to "see employees working" is costing the business What makes you think upper management in public companies isn't mos interested in self-preservation also? The idea that upper management is some benevolent and wise dictator while middle management is a different class of incompetent morons is strange. They're cut from the same cloth.
  - hnfong 3y ago
    There's often an alignment problem where upper management often has some stake/ownership in the business being successful, where the lower/middle managers might see their work as just a salaried job, and hence not as driven to work for the success of the company, and might optimize for things like their own ego when it costs the company money. There's only so much upper management can do to set incentives (Goodhart's law) without micromanaging the middle managers.
- linuxftw 3y ago
  Once you factor in taxes and commute expenses, 18% is practically break-even for even a well compensated employee, and that doesn't include the QOL factor. Indeed, middle management is the plight of modern civilization. They'll probably get replaced by AI soon enough.
  - ebiester 3y ago
    Middle management will only be replaced by AI if fewer employees can do the same job. How many people do you think a VP-Eng or CTO can manage and still do the rest of the job?
    - linuxftw 3y ago
      Middle management's job seems like the easiest to replace by AI. They don't create any products directly, they only take orders from above and distribute them to below. They take feedback from below, possibly communicate it up, most likely communicate it laterally to another team, etc. So, I think we'll see 5 middle managers replaced by 1 or 2 middle managers + AI. It doesn't have to be all or nothing.
      - ebiester 3y ago
        It's like anything else - the closer you get to the problem, the more work you see that happens. Directors are often the group that is doing all the work nobody else is assigned. This goes from scheduling off-sites to preparing for audits to determining who handles unscheduled work that doesn't neatly fit into any one team. Directors are responsible for coaching engineering managers and are the backstop for problems outside the skill level of the eng manager. They also handle project management because in smaller organizations, those positions have already been condensed. Now, I think there's an alternative. You could hire an executive assistant that offloads some of what directors do. You could have a project manager or two handle all the projects across the portfolio for medium sized orgs - you're likely looking at 1.5 project managers for a director salary. (I think there is a place for AI there, but I actually think we have a better algorithm with Monte Carlo simulation.) You could have non-directors doing 85% of what a director does today, but you're still hiring high-skill people. But if AI could replace a director then so could an EM. An EM can write a weekly status better than an AI and if a VP-Eng could rely on that, directors would have been replaced long ago.
toddmatthews 3y ago
At one point in time people probably said the same thing about employer provided health insurance, and now it’s expected. Tough to get good talent if other companies are providing better perks
- wkat4242 3y ago
  In the US I think it's also a retention strategy. Nobody will just up and leave before they have another job lined up because health insurance is unaffordable. One US colleague mentioned $1000 per month! It's a big deterrent IMO especially compared to Spain where healthcare is free
  - kjkjadksj 3y ago
    Honestly, I wonder what sort of aca plans you would qualify for unemployed? Certainly not a $1000 a month one as you’d be reporting no income.
    - blululu 3y ago
      Last I checked the feds treat income as an annual thing that happened a year ago. A six month period of unemployment does not mean your income is zero by their accounting.
- r2_pilot 3y ago
  Employer-provided health insurance comes from World War 2 and the US government locking market pay rates for the war. To compete, employers had to add non-monetary perks such as health insurance. Unfortunately we didn't transition out of this and it ballooned into the current mess.
foxyv 3y ago
It baffles me that people think that employees should just put up with whatever horrible environment an employer produces and be grateful for the job. Even after employers have demonstrated time and time again that they have zero interest in the wellness of their employees aside from how it affects health insurance rates.
- johnnyanmac 3y ago
  >It baffles me that people think that employees should just put up with whatever horrible environment an employer produces and be grateful for the job. I don't think people do, but the issue is that they lack the bargaining power to do anything about it. A tech worker making 6 figures? They aren't going to pushed around as easily as someone who is living paycheck to paycheck just for rent. they can forget to empathize for those who literally are chained to a job.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
dylan604 3y ago
>They give you the least they can possibly get away with. Yup, and now that employees have had a taste of freedom from that, they are very resistant to returning to that. Why is that hard to grasp for companies?
Tao3300 3y ago
> They give you the least they can possibly get away with. Absolutely, but that line has shifted majorly. To the point where it won't make sense for "average" employers to even try to bring people into the office. I'm not going to sink money into gas or public transportation just to be imprisoned in a meeting room when I could just take the call at home from the porch, a treadmill, or a couch.
- onlyrealcuzzo 3y ago
  > I'm not going to sink money into gas or public transportation just to be imprisoned in a meeting room when I could just take the call at home from the porch, a treadmill, or a couch. You're obviously not an average employee then.
surgical_fire 3y ago
> They give you the least they can possibly get away with. And employees should take the most they can possibly get away with. When an employee doesn't behave like that, he is acting against his own interests.
- eloisant 3y ago
  Not only acting against his own interests, but making it worse for everyone by lowering the bar of what an employer needs to provide to hire.
zer8k 3y ago
> The idea that employers need to give you everything you want is strange. The working class, low class, and middle class are all tax cattle. We have to take ostensibly dangerous commutes on highways with people too tired/too rushed/too busy to care. We have to eat inside of a certain timeframe, respond chipper no matter the circumstances, and when they're done with us they just let us go in a "right-sizing". We are subject to panopticon levels of surveillance with open offices, late nights because you don't want to appear to be the guy leaving early, etc. If you're lucky you get a few dozen hours a week with your family, maybe have some hobbies. Cattle, imo, actually have it better because at least Farmer John drives them to work and they eat for free. The Cxx's are always so chipper about coming into the office because they make, on average, 20x more than than the engineers doing actual work, and they can work from home/beach/yacht as they please. Employers would be wise to treat employees with what they want. WFH is a net savings for them unless they're locked into 20 year leases. Many companies happen to get their lease through their VCs so it explains entirely why they are so keen on coming back to office. Employees will just leave to companies still offering remote. The problem for the employers who refuse to change? In a "fully" employed recession wages will not match the environment. If they cannot make up for lost wages with benefits like remote, paid healthcare, 401k match, etc they will die because without tax cattle, they are nothing. This was simply the cattle waking up and realizing that they are the ones with the actual power. Any power a CEO claims to have is simply voodoo. The issue is employees still don't see this. Even without a union having enough people just walk out because the company doesnt respect them will crush the company. Rightly so.
- frollo 3y ago
  > This was simply the cattle waking up and realizing that they are the ones with the actual power. Any power a CEO claims to have is simply voodoo. The issue is employees still don't see this. Even without a union having enough people just walk out because the company doesnt respect them will crush the company. Rightly so. This. While unionisation and labor organisation in general are a good thing for the workers, just people deciding they have had enough and finding a better employer (and maybe pulling out a couple of colleagues via referrals) is going to hurt companies.
- johnnyanmac 3y ago
marcosdumay 3y ago
The idea that they will eat larger costs, so that they can not get you what you want, and part of the reason you want it is because you will be more productive... is quite strange. I don't get where you are coming from.

Veliladon 3y ago

Not only will those employers competing for the best get the best, they'll get it at a discount rate because remote workers are on average willing to accept an 18% pay cut to remain fully remote. Employees are literally willing to pay employers to stay at home. The middle manager who is awful at their job and so insecure they need to "see employees working" is costing the business not just in talent acquisition but when pulling in the dregs they're paying a premium for it. The center cannot hold.

tayo42 3y ago
Middle managers aren't making these decisions to have people go back to working in offices
- kjkjadksj 3y ago
  Their job is to support their staff against higher management. They are failing to do that if their teams are begrudgingly going back to work. They really do have all the leverage here. A business cannot function without labor or else it would just be the c suite as the only people employed.
  - volkk 3y ago
    tell me you've never managed without telling me you've never managed
robertlagrant 3y ago
> The center cannot hold The center isn't just insecure managers. Plenty of people want to work together... together. I happen to run my team remote, but to reduce a real issue to insecurity is to starve the conversation of meaningful contributions.
onlyrealcuzzo 3y ago
> The middle manager who is awful at their job and so insecure they need to "see employees working" is costing the business What makes you think upper management in public companies isn't mos interested in self-preservation also? The idea that upper management is some benevolent and wise dictator while middle management is a different class of incompetent morons is strange. They're cut from the same cloth.
- hnfong 3y ago
  There's often an alignment problem where upper management often has some stake/ownership in the business being successful, where the lower/middle managers might see their work as just a salaried job, and hence not as driven to work for the success of the company, and might optimize for things like their own ego when it costs the company money. There's only so much upper management can do to set incentives (Goodhart's law) without micromanaging the middle managers.
linuxftw 3y ago
Once you factor in taxes and commute expenses, 18% is practically break-even for even a well compensated employee, and that doesn't include the QOL factor. Indeed, middle management is the plight of modern civilization. They'll probably get replaced by AI soon enough.
- ebiester 3y ago
  Middle management will only be replaced by AI if fewer employees can do the same job. How many people do you think a VP-Eng or CTO can manage and still do the rest of the job?
  - linuxftw 3y ago
    Middle management's job seems like the easiest to replace by AI. They don't create any products directly, they only take orders from above and distribute them to below. They take feedback from below, possibly communicate it up, most likely communicate it laterally to another team, etc. So, I think we'll see 5 middle managers replaced by 1 or 2 middle managers + AI. It doesn't have to be all or nothing.
    - ebiester 3y ago
      It's like anything else - the closer you get to the problem, the more work you see that happens. Directors are often the group that is doing all the work nobody else is assigned. This goes from scheduling off-sites to preparing for audits to determining who handles unscheduled work that doesn't neatly fit into any one team. Directors are responsible for coaching engineering managers and are the backstop for problems outside the skill level of the eng manager. They also handle project management because in smaller organizations, those positions have already been condensed. Now, I think there's an alternative. You could hire an executive assistant that offloads some of what directors do. You could have a project manager or two handle all the projects across the portfolio for medium sized orgs - you're likely looking at 1.5 project managers for a director salary. (I think there is a place for AI there, but I actually think we have a better algorithm with Monte Carlo simulation.) You could have non-directors doing 85% of what a director does today, but you're still hiring high-skill people. But if AI could replace a director then so could an EM. An EM can write a weekly status better than an AI and if a VP-Eng could rely on that, directors would have been replaced long ago.

toddmatthews 3y ago

At one point in time people probably said the same thing about employer provided health insurance, and now it’s expected. Tough to get good talent if other companies are providing better perks

wkat4242 3y ago
In the US I think it's also a retention strategy. Nobody will just up and leave before they have another job lined up because health insurance is unaffordable. One US colleague mentioned $1000 per month! It's a big deterrent IMO especially compared to Spain where healthcare is free
- kjkjadksj 3y ago
  Honestly, I wonder what sort of aca plans you would qualify for unemployed? Certainly not a $1000 a month one as you’d be reporting no income.
  - blululu 3y ago
    Last I checked the feds treat income as an annual thing that happened a year ago. A six month period of unemployment does not mean your income is zero by their accounting.
r2_pilot 3y ago
Employer-provided health insurance comes from World War 2 and the US government locking market pay rates for the war. To compete, employers had to add non-monetary perks such as health insurance. Unfortunately we didn't transition out of this and it ballooned into the current mess.

foxyv 3y ago

It baffles me that people think that employees should just put up with whatever horrible environment an employer produces and be grateful for the job. Even after employers have demonstrated time and time again that they have zero interest in the wellness of their employees aside from how it affects health insurance rates.

johnnyanmac 3y ago
>It baffles me that people think that employees should just put up with whatever horrible environment an employer produces and be grateful for the job. I don't think people do, but the issue is that they lack the bargaining power to do anything about it. A tech worker making 6 figures? They aren't going to pushed around as easily as someone who is living paycheck to paycheck just for rent. they can forget to empathize for those who literally are chained to a job.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

dylan604 3y ago

>They give you the least they can possibly get away with. Yup, and now that employees have had a taste of freedom from that, they are very resistant to returning to that. Why is that hard to grasp for companies?

Tao3300 3y ago

> They give you the least they can possibly get away with. Absolutely, but that line has shifted majorly. To the point where it won't make sense for "average" employers to even try to bring people into the office. I'm not going to sink money into gas or public transportation just to be imprisoned in a meeting room when I could just take the call at home from the porch, a treadmill, or a couch.

onlyrealcuzzo 3y ago
> I'm not going to sink money into gas or public transportation just to be imprisoned in a meeting room when I could just take the call at home from the porch, a treadmill, or a couch. You're obviously not an average employee then.

surgical_fire 3y ago

> They give you the least they can possibly get away with. And employees should take the most they can possibly get away with. When an employee doesn't behave like that, he is acting against his own interests.

eloisant 3y ago
Not only acting against his own interests, but making it worse for everyone by lowering the bar of what an employer needs to provide to hire.

zer8k 3y ago

> The idea that employers need to give you everything you want is strange. The working class, low class, and middle class are all tax cattle. We have to take ostensibly dangerous commutes on highways with people too tired/too rushed/too busy to care. We have to eat inside of a certain timeframe, respond chipper no matter the circumstances, and when they're done with us they just let us go in a "right-sizing". We are subject to panopticon levels of surveillance with open offices, late nights because you don't want to appear to be the guy leaving early, etc. If you're lucky you get a few dozen hours a week with your family, maybe have some hobbies. Cattle, imo, actually have it better because at least Farmer John drives them to work and they eat for free. The Cxx's are always so chipper about coming into the office because they make, on average, 20x more than than the engineers doing actual work, and they can work from home/beach/yacht as they please. Employers would be wise to treat employees with what they want. WFH is a net savings for them unless they're locked into 20 year leases. Many companies happen to get their lease through their VCs so it explains entirely why they are so keen on coming back to office. Employees will just leave to companies still offering remote. The problem for the employers who refuse to change? In a "fully" employed recession wages will not match the environment. If they cannot make up for lost wages with benefits like remote, paid healthcare, 401k match, etc they will die because without tax cattle, they are nothing. This was simply the cattle waking up and realizing that they are the ones with the actual power. Any power a CEO claims to have is simply voodoo. The issue is employees still don't see this. Even without a union having enough people just walk out because the company doesnt respect them will crush the company. Rightly so.

frollo 3y ago
> This was simply the cattle waking up and realizing that they are the ones with the actual power. Any power a CEO claims to have is simply voodoo. The issue is employees still don't see this. Even without a union having enough people just walk out because the company doesnt respect them will crush the company. Rightly so. This. While unionisation and labor organisation in general are a good thing for the workers, just people deciding they have had enough and finding a better employer (and maybe pulling out a couple of colleagues via referrals) is going to hurt companies.
johnnyanmac 3y ago

marcosdumay 3y ago

The idea that they will eat larger costs, so that they can not get you what you want, and part of the reason you want it is because you will be more productive... is quite strange. I don't get where you are coming from.